Looking for My First Muscle Car

I think the muscle car bug bit me for the first time when I was racing my 66′ Rambler Rebel with Kathy’s 69′ Dodge Charger. I believe the bug bit me when I heard the bellow of the Charger’s 4 barrel as it kicked in the two back barrels as it pulled away from me.

I had several high school buddies in 1974-75 that had some cool muscle cars while I was tooling around in my 66′ Rambler Rebel. My friend Randy had a 1968 Dodge Coronet 440. It was a nice clean driver, nothing radical. It was red with a white vinyl top and white interior front bench seat. It had chrome Cragar SS wheels, with a 318 V8 under the hood, automatic on the column, factory A/C with an 8 track stereo system. Click link to view some nice Mopars http://www.440magnum.com/mopars/2005/september/

Back in 1975 we had to carry an 8 track cassette case or two the size of a small suitcase to keep all of our favorite 8 track tapes on hand. We cruised many miles on the highways and byways in the 1968 Coronet 440 listening to the Eagles, Doobie Brothers, Joe Walsh, ZZ Top and many others. Gas back then was about .75 cents a gallon.

Hampton Road in Desoto was the strip that we teenagers would cruise on Friday and Saturday nights.
Then we usually would meet up at the Foosaroo at Parkerville Road and a few other foosball halls until late into the night or early the next morning.

On any given Friday or Saturday night you could see a pretty impressive collection of muscle cars at the Foosaroo parking lot. If they were all there at the same time you would think they were having a car show.
Here is a few that I can recall as I sit here writing this blog.
Randy B’s 1968′ red Coronet 440.
Ernie F’s orange 1969′ Plymouth Roadrunner.
Jerry H’s dark blue w/ white racing stripes 69′ Camaro Z28 RS.
Dickey L. black 63′ Impala.
Kathy’s green 69′ Charger.
Gary L’s red 65′ Impala SS.
Terry H’s green Ford 52′ or 53′ Ford Pick Up and a couple of Ford Mustang’s and a couple of party vans.
You would often see these muscle cars driving up and down Hampton Road from Illinois to Parkerville and all of the back roads in the area. With an occasional trip across the Trinity River to restock the ice chest.

With all of these muscle cars surrounding me I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to have one. Even one of my friend’s girlfriend had a dark blue 1965 Ford Mustang 2 + 2 Fastback and I am still driving my 66′ Rambler Rebel.

Me and my friend Ernie had decided it was time for both of us to buy ourselves a muscle car and we were shopping for just the right car for each of us. Ernie called me one day and said he thought he had found his car would I like to go with him to look at it. I said yes let’s go check it out. It was near my house and I had seen it several times on the road. It was a citrus orange with a white vinyl top 1969 Plymouth Road Runner. It had black carpet and white interior with a bench seat, it had a 383 V8 with a Torker intake with a 4 barrel from the factory, automatic on column, factory A/C with 8 track stereo system and slotted mag wheels. It was a great car I always loved it and Randy’s 1968 Dodge Coronet have been favorites of mine.

Ernie bought the 69′ Road Runner and drove it straight to my house to take me for a cruise. When he drove up in the drive way he was grinning from ear to ear. After that cruise around town in the Road Runner my search for my muscle car intensified.

In 1974 I was working for Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) as an assistant manager after school and weekends. One day as I was working at the Duncanville store and I was looking out the serving window onto Camp Wisdom Road I caught a glimpse of a really cool looking muscle car pass by, and it had a FOR SALE sign on it. I started asking around to find out who the owner was and got his phone number. I called Ron the owner who was in his mid 40′s at that time and told him I would like to come look at his car he has for sale. I asked Ron when would be a good time to come see it. He said he was available now if I wanted to come over. I wrote down his address and directions and jumped in my Rambler Rebel and made a bee line to Ron’s house. When I got out of the Rebel and started walking up to the open garage door and saw the rear end sparkling in the sunlight my stomach began to stampede with butterflies.

To be continued……